Nintendo Life: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have featured in many games over the years, but never in a roguelike. Why did you decide to move Turtles into this genre?
Tom Westall, Super Evil Megacorp: Our mission at Super Evil Megacorp is to create the best shared gaming moments in the world. We played other successful roguelike titles and thought how great they would be if we could play together in co-op. We picked up on the idea of ​​a co-op top-down roguelike for four players pretty quickly and then started coming up with new concepts. As soon as someone mentioned TMNT, we knew that was the game we wanted to make. We grew up loving the TMNT with games like Turtles in Time and more recently Shredder’s Revenge, but they mostly have a similar flow and focus to the Brawler genre. The idea of ​​bringing the Turtles to a new genre really excited and excited the whole team as an opportunity to push something new with the IP.
As we explored systems and design ideas, it became clear to us how perfectly suited TMNT was to a roguelike game. It really allowed us to show each turtle’s unique personalities through the narrative, and their in-game fighting styles brought a lot of variety to the game.
We can see a lot of Hades inspiration in Splintered Fate. Was that a specific touchstone during development, and did you appear on any other roguelikes in the process?
Any comparison to such an incredible game as Hades is an amazing compliment, thank you! Hades, in particular, further opened our eyes to how roguelikes can tell epic stories that evolve over time, and is considered by many to be a masterpiece for this reason. In particular, we felt we could bring our background in social gaming to see how we could innovate in this space.
get ready for surprises in every run and don’t forget to play as all the turtles
There are a lot of huge roguelike fans in the company and we were definitely inspired by playing with them. Games like Dead Cells and Slay the Spire have changed the way many of us think about how many years and hours a roguelike can be engaging.
Another title that really inspired us was Children of Morta. This was a game all about family, something the TMNT franchise has always prioritized above all else. We think Splintered Fate is a great addition to the genre, with many familiar systems, but also innovations in the co-op space that fans will really enjoy.
The roguelike genre has grown so much on the Switch, how does Splintered Fate stand out from the crowd?
Co-op! And of course the IP and the ability to play the first TMNT roguelike. This game is so much fun when you play it with others. When we announced this game for Switch, it was clear to us that players want one thing above all else – to play together. There’s definitely something special about playing games together, our studio’s goal is to create the best shared gaming moments, so our mission was clear to ensure that Splintered Fate is an amazing co-op experience. The team has worked incredibly hard to deliver an experience we’re really proud of (with a surprise yet to be announced)! After testing it out with a few of our friends and family, we’re really excited to share the co-op experience with the world.
A run-based game like this naturally requires a lot of repetition. How did you make sure the gameplay loop wasn’t tedious?
Lots of content, random encounters and a few surprises! It really helped that the TMNT universe is a great resource full of a ton of material that allows us to add lots of little surprises to the game.
We’ve made over 100 Turtle Powers, and players will only be able to collect a few each run of creating their kits. It was important to us that we designed several ways to combine these abilities into interesting lineups for players to discover, and we’re sure they’ll find ones we hadn’t even considered.
We also have a progression system that encourages you to play with each turtle, but that benefits all characters. This motivates players to play with all four brothers to unlock everything and become the ultimate ninja turtle.
Each turtle brings a different style and set of tools to the battle
However, it’s not just progression where there’s a lot of choice and variety. We’ve also created several variations of each boss fight and plenty of mini-boss encounters, so you really don’t know what you’ll be up against on each run. As you progress through the game, we’ve also added the ability for players to take on hard versions of boss and mini-boss fights called “Gauntlet Challenges” and gain special portals that increase your rewards but add a new challenge to the run, such as reducing all the healing you are receiving!
If that’s not enough, we have thousands of lines of narration to tell the story or just add fun and flavor while playing. In short, prepare to be surprised every time you run, and be sure to play as all the turtles!
How did you approach the game’s difficulty curve?
We played a lot! We wanted to offer players a challenging experience while supporting a deep progression system. If a particular challenge seems too difficult for you, leveling up some of your skills should help you overcome it. Likewise, if you find the game a bit easy, there are many ways to increase the difficulty as you progress. Only one person on the team completed the game on the hardest setting that I’m aware of.
We knew that some players love challenges while others want to enjoy the story. With this in mind, we also created a “Story Mode”. In this mode, the difficulty is significantly reduced so that you can enjoy the game at a more relaxed pace. Everyone has different skill levels and time available, so giving players that choice seemed like the best solution.
Many of the most famous TMNT games have given each turtle a different play style. How important was it to you that each character feel unique?
Necessary. The Turtles have very diverse personalities and fighting styles, which is part of what makes the series so popular. We leaned into creating a mix of gameplay styles, both for variety and fidelity to the source material.
For example, Raph is a powerful brawler. He can hook a group of enemies to pull them towards him, then unleash his fury and hit them with a flurry of critical hits. Mikey is the complete opposite. Due to his relaxed personality, he focuses on hitting multiple enemies in a wide area.
Each turtle brings a different style and set of tools to the battle, as well as their own affinities with turtle powers, changing the odds of which type of power you’ll see on each run.
Can you talk a bit about Splintered Fate’s character design? What TMNT media did you look at when designing the character models and environments?
This year is TMNT’s 40th anniversary, so there was a lot of source material available. A lot of us grew up watching various iterations of the cartoon, from the 1987 original to the latest shows. As you play the game, you’ll definitely see little Easter eggs referencing some of our favorite moments. We also drew heavily from the comics and enjoyed reading the newer versions, including those written by Tom Waltz, who co-wrote the Splintered Fate story. TMNT Splintered Fate is ultimately Super Evil Megacorp’s take on the franchise, and we hope our passion is reflected in the character design.
What was it like working with Tom Waltz on the Turtles original story?
The best collaborations are always the ones where you get excited about each other’s ideas and build on them. That’s exactly what working with Tom was like. He’s a legend and we’ve had the honor of working with him on our Splintered Fate journey, both on the game and the comics. Tom has such a deep knowledge of TMNT and helped us create an original story that is authentic to the IP while offering a new adventure for fans. We’ve also been working closely with Tom to ensure that TMNT is littered with great Easter eggs and secrets that we hope fans will have a lot of fun with.
Did you find any issues when you launched the game on Switch?
I am now really attached to all four brothers and I love each of them as individuals
At SEMC, we have our own proprietary game engine (EVIL Engine). This allows us to create truly unique experiences for all devices. One of our most exciting challenges for Splintered Fate on Switch was making sure we played to the console’s strengths. We didn’t originally plan on creating a specific feature for launch, but once we saw the demand, we knew we had to (stay tuned for more info coming soon!). This brought a whole host of challenges, both technical and design.
It was also important to us to make this game shine, so we did a complete lighting and sound overhaul and redesigned the UI to make it sing on Switch. We are very proud of the result and believe that Switch fans will love the experience.
Finally, the biggest question of all: Who is your favorite turtle and has that changed while working on Splintered Fate?
A few years ago I would have said Donnie, but now it’s like asking me to choose between my kids! I’m really attached to all four brothers now and I love each of them individually, but of course together they are always the most powerful. If I really had to choose, I think what draws me to him the most is Mikey’s innocence and ability to find joy when all hope seems lost. That said, Raph is my most played.
This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.
Thanks to Tom at Super Evil Megacorp for taking the time to answer our questions, and to Barzeli and Monique at forty-seven for helping us set it up. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate launches on the Switch eShop on July 17th.